Vignettes Of Our Lives
by crazytomboy78
Summary: A series of one-shots featuring a boy and his dog, set during the summer Johnny picked Dukey up from the pound. Requested by manuelmusical14.
1. Coffee and Fetch

**A brief intro to Vignettes Of Our Lives:**

_You may know me as Jonathan Test. But you know me better as Johnny. This is the story of me at the age of 5 after I saved my buddy Dukey from the pound. When Susan and Mary gave him the ability to speak, it was the beginning of a journey that would for the next 6 years lead to us becoming the best buddies we are today. Before those days when I'm often grounded for an experiment with my sisters, failing in school or blackmailing my peers, there were those boy and his dog moments with my only buddy in this world. Having a friend taught to be one and Dukey found love within me in a home away from a dog gone world and through a series of adventures, he would become the world's best dog._

Another beautiful summer morning in Porkbelly. After eating breakfast with my sisters, The 5 year old version of me found Dukey sipping a cup of coffee on the porch. Why is he drinking that stuff? It was a week since the first time he talked.

"Dukey? What are you doing?" I said

"Enjoying a cup of coffee with sugar. The girls convinced me I should try one after all I can talk now." Dukey said I said in response.

"I'm surprised," Then I fed Dukey a juicy piece of steak and gave him a gentle hug and rub on his belly as my way of saying "I Love you". Then, he gave me a lick on the cheek telling me "I love you too" just as he did when I first hugged him at the pound. I said

"I guess turning you into a talking talk was a great idea after all huh, boy," Dukey keep me a happy smile and kept licking my cheek. Boy I sure love my dog.

"We'll do tons of fun things together now that I can talk Johnny and I'll always be your smelly dog." Dukey said.

~…~

Later that day, after I was shoved out of the house by my parents to get some fresh air after I'd stuffed myself in my room playing video games all morning, I came across Dukey's favorite blue ball and got an idea. I grabbed it and threw it across the yard, in Dukey's direction. I laughed as I watched Dukey run wildly after it.

When he brought the ball back and dropped it into my hand, I smiled and threw it again. Dukey once again chased after it excitedly, and once he got back, took me by surprise and jumped on me, making me fall over. We laughed together, and as we calmed down, Dukey licked my cheek.

"Dukey, you're my best friend." I said with a smile.

"I always will be, buddy," Dukey responded.

**Well, there we have the first short oneshot! I have been requested by manuelmusical14 to do a series of vignettes between Johnny and Dukey. Therefore, I'll post a new one each week. They probably won't be too long, though, because even though I really only have 3 stories going right now, it takes me a couple hours at a time to complete a chapter because they require a lot of thought to plan out the characters next moves. And plus I've done so many stories by now that it's getting a little tougher to squeeze ideas outta my head. But anyways, enough blabbing,…review!**


	2. Meeting Sissy and Missy

As Johnny hooked Dukey up to his leash and walked out the front door to take a walk, the two spotted a girl and her dog walking down the opposite side of the street, who seemed to be about the same age as the two boys. Johnny had only gotten Dukey a week ago, so this was his way of showing Dukey around the neighborhood. Unfortunately for them, that included meeting two girls that managed to stay on Johnny's nerves a lot.

"Who is that?" Dukey asked, referring more to the dog than the girl, although he noticed Johnny specifically had his eyes on the girl. Johnny folded his arms indignantly.

"That's Sissy Blakely and her dog, Missy. I hate her." Johnny explained. Dukey studied the pink poodle very briefly, the name Missy ringing in his head. Missy. He wasn't sure what to make of the dog. They hadn't been formally introduced, and he'd never talked to her before in his life, but something about her gave him a burning feeling in his gut. And he didn't like it very much.

"Doesn't sound that way to me…" Dukey mumbled. The two continued down the opposite side of the street as Sissy and Missy on their walk. Although they attempted to ignore the girls, they certainly saw the boys.

"Hey Test," Sissy said as she crossed the street, walking up to Johnny and Dukey.

"Sissy."

"I see you got a dog. What, are you copying me?"

"No, I'm not copying you. My parents saw that I was getting lonely so they got me a dog. You had nothing to do with this." Johnny explained angrily.

"Whatever. What'd you name it?" Sissy asked, surprisingly in a friendly tone.

"_His _name is Dukey." Johnny explained. Sissy shrugged.

As the two humans had their little back and forth, Dukey and Missy had their own introduction.

"I know you can't talk, and that's probably not exactly a problem, but I'm going to go ahead and say my name is Dukey anyways." Dukey said quietly, so the two wouldn't hear.

"What kind of dog are you? A mutt?" Missy answered, not in actual words but speaking in a sort of a 'dog language'.

"At least I have a little variety. You're just a plain old single breed. Think of me as…the Mona Lisa of the dog breed world." Dukey explained.

"Uh huh…"

"See you around, Test," Sissy said, walking back to the other side of the street and away.

"Tell me again, why aren't we nice to them?" Dukey asked.

"Uhh, because we hate each other." Johnny explained.

"Why?" Asked Dukey. Johnny stopped. Although he wouldn't admit it, he really couldn't think of a reason why.

"Because we do, okay?"

Dukey smirked. He saw what was going on between the two, but he knew not to say anything. He saw the little feud they had going, and he saw the reason beneath it that the two children didn't realize, but he knew they'd work it out when they were much, much older.

"Alright then…" Dukey said as the two went back to their walk.

"Do you like Missy at all?" Johnny asked. Dukey was hesitant to answer. He was in between feelings. He half felt like the two could be friends and half felt that they were destined to be enemies, like Johnny and that creepy boy who's been stalking Susan lately. He didn't know what to make of it.

"No and yes…" Dukey responded. Johnny shrugged and the two went back to their walk.

**Dang, told you these would be short. I got nothing else for this little idea, so review!**


	3. Talking

A young Johnny test had just gotten his dog a week and a half ago, and he was trying to get the full attention of the young puppy so they could play outside.

"Dukey, come on, I want to play outside! Stop chewing the couch cushions, mom and dad will be so mad!" Johnny whined, tugging at the couch cushion that Dukey had his jaws around. After a tug of war with the now tattered cushion, Johnny dragged Dukey outside and began a game of fetch.

"Ugh, he does too much dog stuff. I've gotten in trouble nonstop because he whizzed on the carpet in the living room or chewing up all my toys or something. Can't you make him less…dog?" Johnny complained as his sisters approached him and Dukey.

"That's what dogs are like, Johnny, and you wanted one. You have to be able to handle the responsibility." Susan said.

"Yeah. And you have to train him not to do all that." Mary added.

"But he can't do anything except chase a ball. Can't you make him talk or something?" Johnny asked.

"Well, we could add a trace of human DNA that would enable him to have the ability to talk and socialize like a real human." Susan thought aloud. It was an interesting experiment.

"Well what are we waiting for then? Let's do that!" Johnny said, grabbing his sisters and Dukey and dragging them to the lab.

~…~

Hours later, and after many (painful maybe, for Dukey) experiments, Dukey emerged from the chamber in the girls' lab at first on four feet, seeming as normal a dog as he had been before.

"Dukey, try saying something. Anything simple, like hello." Susan asked. Dukey struggled for a minute, as of course it was his first time speaking.

"H-he-…" Dukey started. Johnny smiled hopefully. "Hell…hello?" He finished.

"Good! Now try standing on two legs. You should be able to do that now."

So, as told, Dukey pulled himself up onto two legs. Wobbling at first, he finally managed after a minute or two to stand successfully.

He was so curious about the world around him. Sure, everything was still in black and white, but everything seemed much easier to handle. Everything seemed his size, something he could handle, something that was part of his world now. And talking…talking alone opened up a whole new part of life. A whole new way to bond with his owners. A whole new way to get closer to the ones he loved. Then there was walking. Why, he almost felt like one of the humans.

"Alright, looks like the experiment worked. Congrats, Johnny, you have the only talking, walking dog in the known world." Susan said. Johnny watched eagerly as Dukey slowly stepped towards Johnny. Johnny grabbed him by the paw excitedly and showed him around the world of the two-legged. Things along the tour included the variety of tastes involved in human food, the vast diversity of human clothing, and just out of curiosity, since he began to see a more mature side of Dukey coming out, coffee.

"Here, drink this. My parents drink it in the morning so they stay awake." Johnny explained.

"Does it taste any good?" Asked Dukey. Johnny merely shrugged.

"I don't know, I don't drink it. I know lots of adults do." Johnny explained. Dukey decided to give it a shot and took a sip of the coffee. Once it slid down his throat and into his stomach, he realized he quite liked the taste of it, and the slight energy boost he'd gained from it. As they continued on the two-legged tour, Dukey sipped more and more of the coffee until it was done.

Johnny even gave Dukey a human disguise so they could go out to see the town.

"Hmm…you look a bit hairy to be a human…people won't be convinced." Johnny said as he studied Dukey's disguise, which consisted of a pair of his dad's pants and an old coat that belonged to his grandfather.

"No, people won't believe it. We need an excuse." Johnny said, thinking aloud.

"What if I say I have some sort of really rare disorder where I can't control my excessive hair growth or something?" Dukey asked.

"That's good. Let's use that." Johnny said. He dug out an old gag shirt that he'd used for Halloween last year that said 'not a dog' on it. He gave it to Dukey to wear with some shorts and a hat, so he looked like a real kid.

So after the disguise adventure, the two went into town where Johnny gave Dukey his first taste of ice cream, red gush, and various other things he enjoyed, making sure to buy a new video game on their way home.

Once they got home, Johnny showed Dukey how to play video games. Dukey was amazed by the vast and luxurious world of a human. There were so many things they could do that were fabulous and unnecessary for survival that they could afford. It was way different than the doggy lifestyle he'd led before. Going from a lowly mutt stuck in a pound, days away from being euthanized for his own good to a calm, quiet suburban home where he was safe and warm and welcomed and loved was something that took more than a week and a half to adjust to. Especially when among your owners was two geniuses who could enable him to talk. And when your new best buddy paid more attention to you than you'd gotten your whole life.

So, after hours of playing mindless video games (and Dukey getting the hang of it quickly, beating Johnny on many occasions) and taking a short break for dinner, their bright summer day had wound to an end and it was time for Johnny to get to bed. The two had been playing video games so long that Johnny hadn't realized how tired he'd been getting, and rested his head on Dukey's lap, proceeding to slowly drift to sleep. Dukey noticed his sleeping friend and carefully and quietly shut off their game box, carrying Johnny to bed and falling asleep by his bedside.

And as he fell asleep, he knew that this was truly a forever family he would love his whole life.

**Wellp, just a short one since I have other stories to get to. Review?**


	4. A Family Beyond Average

It was a bright summer day in Porkbelly, and young Johnny was preparing to fire water from his water gun at Sissy once she emerged from her house when Dukey strolled out, having just woken up.

"Johnny, what are you doing?" He asked.

"Sissy got me at the water gun war yesterday and I'm going to get her back by squirting her unexpectedly." Johnny explained, attentive to Sissy's front door.

"Is this another you liking her but not admitting it thing?" Dukey asked as he took a sip of his coffee.

"I told you, I don't like her I hate her!" Johnny defended.

"Sure…" Dukey muttered as he crouched behind the bush as Johnny was. He decided to play along with Johnny's little game. He'd get it someday, he knew.

Not much longer than a couple minutes later, Sissy walked outside and Johnny immediately squirted her, catching her off guard.

"Haha, gotcha! Revenge has been served!" Johnny exclaimed, running back into his garage before she had the chance to get him back for it.

~…~

Later that day, Johnny was at the top of the hill by his house, buckling his helmet before he got on his bike to prepare to pull one of his usual extreme stunts. Dukey once again observed his new owner's unusual behavior.

"Do you do this kind of thing all the time?" Dukey asked.

"Why not? It's fun!" Johnny exclaimed as he swung his leg over the seat of his bike, keeping one foot on the ground so he didn't go anywhere.

"Because it looks dangerous. Maybe you shouldn't do this?" Dukey inquired as he looked down the hill to see a ramp followed by a row of trash cans and another ramp.

"Dangerous schmangerous. This is gonna be good! Calm down, dog."

Dukey shrugged. Boys will be boys, he thought.

Johnny finally took off down the hill, clearing the ramps and trash cans safely, and almost safely landing. Upon impact with the landing ramp, the frail wooden structure broke into pieces upon the heavy impact of Johnny on his bike. The momentum gained from the hill and the ramp he took off on caused too much pressure for the poor ramp. Johnny's bike tipped over when it landed on the road, ending in Johnny skinning his knee.

Dukey raced to the bottom of the hill, worried that his master was badly injured.

"Johnny, Johnny, are you okay?" He asked, panicked.

"Relax, dog, I'm fine." Johnny said, waving off his dog's concern.

Dukey sighed in relief. "I thought you were badly hurt for a moment there," He said.

"Well I'm fine. Just because I broke the ramp doesn't mean I died or something." Johnny explained, petting his dog's head.

Dukey brought Johnny inside to wash off his cut and give him a Band-Aid. As he did so, he began to think. He thought that his owner was very interesting. One minute he showed his soft, loving and caring side, and the next minute, he was a rough-and-tough boy who didn't show his emotions. Which was average of most boys his age, of course, but it wasn't very average to be both affectionate and tough. He also considered Johnny's behavior towards Sissy. He knew that had a large part to do with it. He knew since the first day he'd met Sissy that there was something interesting between the two. Something that was going to keep building over time as they grew, and he knew that through those years he would get closer to Johnny, they would become closer friends, but someday he would have to make room for Sissy in Johnny's life.

~…~

The next day, Johnny had sat down to play some video games, so Dukey decided to join him. He found his new family rather different than he'd expected to come home with when they'd picked him up at the pound just two weeks earlier. When he'd been picked up, he'd imagined that his new family would be an average American family with an average little boy and his average older sisters. And he thought they'd all be an average American family that plays it safe and are careful and very, very loving. What he got was very different. Sure, the loving part was true, but the rest…not so much.

What he _got _was an anything but average family with an anything but average life. Genius twin sisters and their extreme little brother who didn't know the limits of safety. He hadn't been prepared for such a crazy lifestyle as they had, but that didn't mean he didn't like it. It was different, sure, but different could be in a good way. And it was. The more time he spent with this wacky family, the more he realized that different was fun in this case. In this case, this family wasn't afraid to take risks and they weren't afraid to speak their minds. He was actually glad to have a wacky family, because what that meant was that they had fun their own way. They had fun in a way no one else could imagine having fun. He couldn't quite explain it, but there was something he really liked about these people. They did things in a rather extreme manner; in a manner most families wouldn't dare try.

"You guys are far from ever being normal, aren't you?" Dukey asked.

"Oh yeah." Johnny said, highly concentrated on the video game. Dukey thought more. This family had given him the ability to _talk_. He knew he wouldn't get that anywhere else. He knew he'd never have a family even remotely like this one at all if he ever looked. Johnny's sisters invented life-changing inventions on a daily basis. He was given the most unique opportunity that a dog could ever get. It would take some getting used to, but this family was worth keeping, definitely.

**Veeery short, but I had to get it done before bedtime tonight cuz I won't be able to access the internet or a computer for that matter all weekend. :P so review!**


	5. Dukey's First Johnny Experiment

It was just a normal day for Johnny and his dog as they were returning from a walk through town when Susan grabbed Johnny by the arm and dragged him off to the lab. Dukey quickly followed.

"Johnny, its good you're here! We have a favor to ask you." She explained.

"What is it this time?" Johnny asked in a slightly annoyed tone.

"We've come up with a new invention and we need you to test it. No questions, just get into this chamber." Susan said, pushing Johnny into a chamber of their own design. Dukey watched curiously.

"What are you going to do to him?" He asked nervously.

"Oh, it's nothing, just a hair volumizer to impress Gil." Susan explained briefly as she made the proper preparations for the machine.

"Gil? Who's Gil?" Asked the dog.

"The dreamy neighbor that lives next door, Gil Nexdor." **(A/N: I think I spelled that right?) **Mary explained. Susan pressed a large, red button on the dashboard and the machine Johnny had gotten in twirled around and shuttered and shook. Johnny grunted and screamed in pain briefly before the machine stopped. The door slid open and Johnny walked out.

The girls were elated to see a Johnny with thickened, luxurious and voluminous blonde hair and signature red tips.

"It works! Our awesome hair will totally impress Gil!" Susan exclaimed excitedly.

But they weren't so happy when a moment later, Johnny's hair began to grow uncontrollably until it filled the whole room. The four had to chop away at it until it was clear enough in the lab for the girls to get to work on fixing the experiment.

After they had fixed Johnny, they went to work on a solution to their problem, leaving Johnny and Dukey to return to their business.

"Does that happen regularly?" Dukey asked.

"Yeah. You should get used to it now because this is almost a daily thing." Johnny explained nonchalantly. Dukey was surprised at how casually Johnny was treating it. Then again, he'd had more time to get used to it then himself.

"Seems like an odd thing to happen daily…"

"Not in this family…"

"Is it always something to impress this Gil guy?"

"Pretty much. Ever since he moved in next door last year it has, anyways. Maybe once they get back into school it'll be more important stuff. I don't know. Whatever it is I'm usually the guinea pig." Johnny explained further, once again casual. Dukey was beginning to realize the full craziness of his new family, so he decided to shrug it off and get used to it. Especially when this kind of thing was going to happen a lot.

**Short one for tonight since I have an unbelievable desire to sleep right now, which is uncommon for me…let's just say it's been one hell of a long weekend and it has continued into tonight. Review?**


	6. DressUp Prank

Johnny and Dukey were playing in the yard one sunny Saturday afternoon when Susan and Mary burst through the front door looking for him.

"Johnny, there you are! We have a favor to ask you," Susan exclaimed, sounding as innocent as she could.

"What kind of favor?" Johnny asked.

"An experiment favor." Mary explained. Johnny sighed.

"Alright, alright fine…"

The girls shouted briefly in excitement before dragging Johnny away to the lab, leaving Dukey to bring a stick back to nobody. He soon dropped the stick and found his way up to the lab.

When he got to the lab, Dukey discovered an excited Susan and Mary watching Johnny flying around the room in what looked like a rocket-powered dress.

"Okay, I'm lost. What's going on here?" Dukey asked.

"We've invented the Rocket Dress! It's pretty self-explanatory." Susan explained.

"Why?"

"Because of emergencies, duh." Mary chimed.

"Right…" Dukey said, rolling his eyes. "Why does it have to be a dress, though?"

"Because we needed a practical means of emergency escape to keep with us during situations that may call for emergency escape, such as bad dates. So we figured the best way was to put it in a dress." Susan explained.

"Or, you wanted to put your little brother in a dress."

The girls smiled. "Yeah, that was part of the decision."

Johnny, after enjoying his joyride in the jetpack dress, landed on the ground with a smile full of excitement.

"That was awesome! Can I do that again?" He asked.

"Johnny, you do realize you're in a dress?" Dukey asked.

"Wha—oh man! They didn't show me what they were putting on, they just blindfolded me and put it on me! I was too excited by the jetpack feature to bother to look." Johnny explained.

"Well, it's pretty hilarious." Dukey responded as he pulled out a camera and began snapping pictures of Johnny in a dress while Johnny fought with Dukey for the camera so he could delete the pictures.

"Come on, gimme the camera!" Johnny exclaimed.

"Not until these pictures are on the internet!"

"Don't you dare! Give me the camera!" Johnny exclaimed. He and Dukey tackled each other out of the lab; but before they could leave, Susan asked for the dress-pack back, so Johnny threw it off and got his old clothes back before continuing fighting Dukey for the camera. The girls chuckled at their little joke as they went back to work on their inventions.

**Eh, this one wasn't too awesome. In my defense, it's midnight and I used all my brain power on an essay for English class. But eh, whatever. Review?**


	7. Stargazing

It was a cool summer night, and Johnny and Dukey were running around the yard after dinner, playing before it was time to go to bed. Dukey was just playfully and carelessly chasing Johnny around.

"Aha! Tag, you're it!" Dukey shouted as he tapped Johnny's shoulder.

"Darn it! Come back here!" Johnny responded playfully.

"I don't think so!"

Johnny chased after Dukey in an attempt to tag him back and escape the position of tagger with a playful smile on his face. But as he couldn't run as fast as Dukey, he grew tired after a few minutes of chasing him.

Johnny soon grew too tired to continue, so he laid out on the lawn in the front of his house. Dukey found him laying down and joined him. The two were silent for a long while before Johnny finally spoke up.

"Space is so cool." Johnny said.

"Yeah, I know. It's so never-ending. There's no 'edge of space'. You could get lost forever up there." Dukey responded, sighing in wonder.

"Yeah. And time stops. So you could be up there for like an hour and it'd be a whole day passed on earth or something." Johnny said.

The two laid in silence for a while as they watched the stars some more until Dukey began pointing out constellations.

"That one's supposed to be Orion's belt," He explained, pointing upwards. "See the three in a line right there?"

"Where's the rest of Orion?" Asked Johnny curiously.

"Around the belt. See the torso above it? It's in a sort of a rectangle shape. His legs are below the belt if you can spot the two lines of stars." Dukey explained.

"Cool."

"And that one over there is Taurus the Bull," Dukey explained.

Johnny started spotting his own and pointed a few out, pointing to the big and little dippers.

"The big dipper actually points to the north star." Dukey explained.

"Really? So where is it?" Johnny asked.

"If you look at the two stars on the outer side of the bowl and look for the star in a straight line from them, you have your north star." Dukey explained. Johnny was silent for a moment as he looked for the north star.

"Oh, cool, I see it!" Johnny said excitedly. Johnny and Dukey went back and forth for a little bit longer, pointing out different constellations. This went on until Dukey looked beside him to see that Johnny had fallen asleep. Dukey scooped the boy up in his arms and carried him to his room and into his bed. Before lying down at the foot of the bed to curl up and fall asleep himself, he ran his tongue across Johnny's cheek. Whether the boy knew the move had been made or not, Dukey didn't care. He appreciated his new home.

**Yeah, ik this was short, but I didn't really know what to do for this week's oneshot…its good enough, right? Soo review…**


	8. It's A Secret

Johnny was playing with the neighbor kids outside one fine summer day, and Dukey was laying out on the front lawn, watching. His ears perked up when he heard his name in the distance.

"Your dog is so boring, Test, he just lays there. Doesn't he do any tricks or nothing?" Bumper asked when he noticed Johnny's new dog.

"Dukey is not boring, he's the best dog ever. He just doesn't have anything to do right now." Johnny defended.

"Don't puppies run around a lot? Aren't they really hyper or something?"

"Dukey's not a _puppy_, he's two and a half!"

"Whatever, Test. At least my dog can do cool tricks." Bumper said as he headed towards his house to play with his own bulldog.

"Hey, my dog can walk and talk! That's cooler than anything your dog will ever do." Johnny defended, following after the neighborhood bully.

"Oh yeah? Prove it."

"I will! Just come over to my yard and see!" Johnny said, leading the boy to his yard.

Susan and Mary watched from the lab window. They had been working when the boy had caught their eye. They noticed he was doing something suspicious, and by the looks of it, was in a heated argument with the boy down the street.

"What is he doing?" Susan asked.

"I don't know…" Mary responded. She grabbed an invention they had created last week to amplify sounds from very far distances and aimed it at their brother.

"_My dog can walk and talk!"_

They immediately raced outside to stop their brother's reckless actions.

Just as Johnny was about to get Dukey to stand up and say something, they stepped in and stopped him.

"Johnny, Dukey can't talk! Sorry, Bumper, I think he's confusing Dukey with a dog he saw on a cartoon this morning." Susan explained.

"Psh. Whatever, I knew it was a fake. See you later, Test." Bumper said, returning home.

"Why did you do that? I was just about to totally freak him out!" Johnny wined.

"Exactly, Johnny, that's not a good thing! You can't tell anyone about Dukey's special abilities. They'll want to take him away from you and do tons of painful experiments on him, and you might never see him again. Is that what you really want?" Mary explained.

"No…" Johnny responded weakly.

"Johnny, I don't want to be tested on. That sounds painful…" Dukey added.

"So you have to promise us you'll never tell anyone that Dukey is not a normal dog. Do you promise?" Susan asked.

"I promise." Johnny said monotonously and miserably. He picked up a ball and threw it across the yard so Dukey could fetch it.

**Yeah, this one was kinda short. I didn't really know what else to do for this particular one-shot, so this was what came out when I picked a concept and squished it onto a Word document. So review?**


	9. Fourth of July

As the sun set over Lake Porkbelly, the Test family sat out under the appearing stars on a large blanket. They had just finished a picnic dinner, and they were waiting for the fireworks to start. It was the night before the famed holiday celebrating America's independence-the Fourth of July. And they were just hours away from midnight- but they wouldn't stay out _that_ late. As of that moment, it was around nine at night on July 3rd- the most popular time for celebratory Independence Day fireworks.

"This is the best holiday of the year. The fireworks are so pretty, with all the colors in the sky." Susan explained as they looked up into the dark, starlit night sky.

"Isn't it? It's such a great time to get together with family and just enjoy everything you have." Lila responded. Every member of the Test family was having a good time- not even Johnny was bored, despite what was normally expected of a teenage boy with a passion for the extreme side of life. Despite that expectation, he was having a good time sitting back and relaxing as he rested his head on Dukey's side. Dukey had drifted off to sleep as his family had been enjoying their dinner and chatting contently. Before they had settled down for dinner, Johnny had engaged his dog in a game of fetch, so he was pooped out from the day in general.

Dukey was startled awake by the sudden, loud booming of the first of many fireworks that had traveled into the sky and exploded, causing colorful sparks to fly in a million different directions, and sometimes, quite an array of colors as well. Fireworks exploded into blues and greens and reds, and rainbows and chandelier shapes. They lit up the dark, starry night sky like nothing else could ever do.

The Tests watched the exploding sky with excitement, 'ooh'ing and 'ahhh'ing at the exciting and beautiful displays. One manmade thing that could make nature seem even more beautiful than it already was; despite most technology, which did a little bit of the opposite.

As they watched the fireworks, the family suddenly seemed to be the opposite of their normal selves. From anyone else's perspective, at that moment they seemed like your average tight-knit American family, who did normal family things and cared for each other as much as a normal family would, together and didn't have hectic days fraught with peril; although normally they were a family full of wild experiments, hectic adventures packed into each and every day, and many more things. Yet despite all these factors, they still cared about each other and loved each other as much as a normal family would.

Seeing the fireworks exploding in the sky made Johnny think back on every fortune he'd had the pleasure of in his eleven-year long life. He realized that sure, maybe his life wasn't perfect, but it sure was a heck of a lot better than what a lot of other people have- which isn't much. He learned that day that the imperfections in his life were things to appreciate and be proud of. (But of course, how long could you expect an eleven year old to pay attention to his realizations? He's extreme-bound. He'd be back to his old ways as soon as the sun rose the next morning.)

In that moment, Johnny was nothing but happy, content and thankful. Heck, he even appreciated Sissy's constant bugging him. And this is _Sissy_ he was referring to- his own personal bully. She didn't want to bully anyone else, she was just rude to him. It was a mystery only maturity could solve.

Johnny soon went back to appreciating the things he had instead of focusing on the girl that antagonized him on almost a daily basis. And that's what Independence Day was all about- realizing all these things. Realizing all these things and saying 'hey, that's possible because of what a couple of brave guys were willing to fight for what they knew they, and a lot of others deserved'. It was things like simple history that made them thankful for who they were and what they had. And that's all that really mattered.

**Yeah, this was cheesy and weird and lame- I couldn't think of anything else. But I think it makes a good enough point. The holidays are for appreciating what you have, so this Independence Day, do a little appreciating cuz what you have is probably a heck of a lot better than what a lot of other kids have. **

…**yeah, I'll stop lecturing now. Review?**


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